


Drift: Missing Scene

by Lythlyra



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-23
Updated: 2011-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-27 22:10:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/300590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lythlyra/pseuds/Lythlyra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anders heals him until the magic nearly runs dry, but it barely feels like it's enough. (Fenris/Anders slash)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drift: Missing Scene

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Neonowls](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neonowls/gifts).



> As an art and fic trade for the holidays, Neon prompted me this as her gift, which ended up working best as a missing scene from [Drift](http://archiveofourown.org/works/269875"); specifically, this is the scene Hawke accidentally sees in passing. It makes the most sense with context from the fic, but to summarize as briefly as I can -- post Act III, on the run via sailing with Marian Hawke and Isabela, with an established Fenris/Anders relationship that fell apart.
> 
> This fic contains sexual situations and is NSFW.

Anders heals him until the magic nearly runs dry, but it barely feels like it's _enough_. Fenris sways with more than just the rocking of Isabela's ship when he sits on the edge of the bed, and Anders has to steady him by the shoulders.

Fenris is too exhausted to shrug him off.

It's a detail that nags and worries, keeps Anders wondering, at the back of his mind, if there's something he missed -- but gashes and bones are as knitted as they can be, and that he _knows_.

He takes Fenris' weight against his chest, shifting him out of armor and leather, unfastening buckles and straps; it seems to stir him from his haze, his resolute quiet, long fingers grasping at Anders' arms, pushing away.

"No," he bites out, fighting back against discomfort and exhaustion.

"Of all the times to be stubborn, now isn't it. Have you seen yourself?"

There's gore over every inch of him, some not his own; at least they silently seem to agree that he can't sleep like this.

"I will do it myself." And Fenris is just prickly enough, just venomously angry enough with him after all this time, that Anders knows he means it -- that fighting him will undo all his well-intended overtures.

Anders lets him finish, through every wince and shuffle and fumble, until the armor is discarded.

His first, staggering steps toward the bath, the way his knees almost _buckle_ , are finally too much, and Anders is there, at his side, catching him beneath an elbow and bracing, holding, guiding.

He can see, _feel_ , the flash of irritation. "Don't say it. Let's just get this over with."

There's a silence between them that extends for too long to be comfortable, Fenris staring somewhere into the shallow tub.

"Why are you doing this?"

 _Because it's what I do_ , he wants to say. _Because it's what I've always done. Even though we came together and fell apart, nothing changes that_.

Instead, he can only watch, brow furrowed, and offer, "I don't know."

They both know that's not true, but they allow the lie.

They allow it as Fenris sinks into the water, as Anders finds soap and cloth, as gore and muck are carefully, meticulously worked away swipe after swipe; Fenris isn't immune to the pull of warm water and careful touches, slumped and silent. His breathing is still uneven, hitching -- pained, Anders thinks -- but the anger bleeds away and with it, some of the tension.

Anders is dutiful as he lathers and rinses, over his arms and over his chest, the familiar tone of skin and markings cleaner and clearer and closer to how he recalls them. This body, lean and bruised, is one he still knows well, one he remembers tracing with lips and tongue.

He _misses_ that.

Fenris barely speaks to him, much less touches him, and the worst part is that Anders knows he only has himself, his revolution, to blame.

"Enough, mage." The words are rasped, clipped, but partially right; the worst of the mess is gone, little more than murky swirls in the bath water.

"If you like the _just-dunked-my-head-in-blood_ look, then by all means," he dryly points out.

He watches as he touches at it, as his hand feels over matted locks and comes away red. At the very least, Fenris is _quiet_ when he finally stops trying to push Anders away. Without resistance, it's easier for Anders to smooth water over his scalp, work his fingers through the hair, softer with each brush of his fingers, a little less sodden beneath the cover of foamy suds.

His hand skirts the tip, the shape, of an ear; Fenris tenses and holds his breath, jaw tightening. Anders wonders if it's because he remembers the same things that _he_ does.

 _A tangle of sheets and legs, his face buried just below that ear, drawing it into his mouth and revelling when Fenris both arches away and gathers him closer_.

He begins to scrub a bit more vigorously, to wash away the soap a bit more urgently, nodding. "It looks fine now."

Fenris manages, under what looks like intense concentration, to help himself out of the bath and to the bed, easing his way into a loose pair of trousers. Anders wants to help when he catches the winces, the hisses, but it's back to that cold dismissal, that flash of eyes that tell him, with no hesitation, _You have done enough_.

It's more than pride, than wanting to deal with the wounds on his own, but Anders can't stand to see it, that _resentment_ , there anymore.

"You're an ungrateful bastard. Do you know that?"

From the brink of exhaustion and back again in the instant, he catches the way Fenris' face darkens, turns in on itself with a sudden sharpness, but Anders is tired, too, somewhere beyond concern and pleading and guilt and running from the oncoming storm.

"You were bleeding out up there. Do you know why you _didn't_? Magic. _My_ magic."

The sneer, though worn at the edges with tiredness, is no less pointed, much like his voice. "I know what else those hands have done. I know what they have cost."

"I won't apologize for it. There was no other choice."

"You designed it so that there wouldn't be." It's a quiet anger that stills him, dangerous and telling enough to make him understand.

He stares, disbelieving. "You think I planned-- You and I as a part of this-- Don't be _ridiculous_."

"There are some things that have little to do with you."

Anders pinches at the bridge of his nose; half exhausted though he is, the elf is still insufferable, still guarded, still volatile. "It's true, what I said. And it won't fix-- it won't change-- This was never a plan."

He remembers hoping that the issues in Kirkwall could be resolved some other way; he remembers that hope failing, the despair, the injustice. And he remembers that at no time did he ever imagine he'd look at Fenris in anything other than frustration.

There is still that, but it's not as it once was. Nothing about this, what they are, _is_.

It's the quiet that stirs Anders again, that lowers his hands to see where Fenris sits on the bed, the set of his shoulders tense, the angle of his jaw hard -- but it's more than Fenris allows him to say in all the time that they stay on this ship.

He knows he won't get this moment again.

He's moving, _reaching_ for Fenris, before he thinks it through, and he sees just that glimpse of his shadowed stare, never as readable as Anders would like, when their mouths crash together.

Fenris pulls him in with a growl, a snarl, a groan, visceral and shared between them.

It's graceless, the way they shed clothing between heated kisses, the way they fall onto the bed; there is skin and breath and taste, desperate and familiar warmth, but it slows with Fenris' winces and snarls, searching but paced; Anders searches with fingers, mapping the vines of lyrium in their arching patterns, and lips, trailing over the angle of his jaw, the slope of neck.

It's still a battle between them, consuming what's in its wake; Fenris bites and marks, tracing sensitive expanse of Anders' throat with his nose and learning shapes with his lips, fingers and hands kneading and dragging down his back, settling against his hips and pressing them to his own.

That slide of heat, of skin, of _them_ is electric.

With those long legs folded near his waist, with the last of his restraint spent finding salve and slicking and soothing what he can, they finally fit; Fenris draws him closer still until they're flush, bound, tangled.

It's different than any time before, tempered by touch, by the shifts of the familar, strong body against his, the fanning of breath, the inconsistencies and pauses that still spoke of ache, of battle-weariness -- different because he didn't think he'd feel this again, but he can do nothing less. It's all feeling, sensation, the pull of his hips back and the push of them forward, the slide of skin against his own, slick and lithe, the sting of _teeth_ when they graze the crook of his neck.

The madness takes hold slowly but surely, harder to tell where he begins, where Fenris ends, whose hands clasp whose, who arches for the next thrust and who meets it until the synergy begins to fray, until the heat, the pleasure, pools and spikes and _consumes_.

With the play of clever fingers between them, timed to their jagged rhythm, they come apart together.

When they disentangle, long after their breaths slow, there is silence between them. What he can see of Fenris in the lantern light -- sharp angles, tight brow, a flash of lyrium with the rise and fall of his chest -- tells him nothing, but it's still more than he thinks to expect.

There are no heated accusations. There are no demands for him to leave.

If Anders knows anything about Fenris, it's that the small things are the most telling.

Whatever this is, it's a start.


End file.
